An assessment of hawking activities in Fingo Village, Grahamstown

Abstract:

Aims to describe the hawking operation per se and to establish the location of semi-static and static hawking outlets in Fingo Village, and what determines access to these sites. Little is known about how hawking enterprises in Fingo Village operate. Without such information any urban planning strategy associated with promoting hawking, or similar informal activities, will lack substantiative background and verification. The thesis is divided into five parts. Chapter Two sets the study within a theoretical context and describes how such studies form a integral part of human geography and development studies. Changes in both human geography and development studies have influenced the conception of the informal sector. Two schools of thought, the duelist and structuralist schools, have had a profound effect upon attempts to define this sector. The result has been a series of divergent definitions and models describing the informal sector, a selection of which are discussed in Chapter Two. Finally, a series of current research gaps identified during the literature survey are presented. They indicate the relevance of the hawking study outlined in the thesis. The nature of the study area is outlined in Chapter Three and details of the methodology used to conduct the empirical research for the study are described in Chapter Four. The results of the hawking survey in Fingo Village are presented in Chapter Five and an assessment of these results is provided in Chapter Six. This latter chapter also includes suggestions for future research. Chapter Seven gives an overall perspective of the study presented in the thesis and briefly describes policy implications arising from the work.